Hacker News Reader

Comment by ahofmann | Hacker News Reader

A nitpick, that bothers me more, than I'd like to admit: the author talks about the former divide in Germany and the difference between Hamburg and Munich because of that. Problem is, both towns where in west Germany and not divided at all (except of course by the Weißwurstäquator ;-)).

View on HN

I assume you are referring to this sentence:

> I know German history and how divided the country used to be, so it shouldn’t be a surprise to see these differences.

The author is not talking about Germany post-WW2, but pre-1870, where Germany was divided into 39 independent states (if we include the Austrian Empire), at least in the 19th century. Before that, the number was likely higher.

German history is a lot longer than the past century.

> pre-1870, where Germany was divided into 39 independent states

The 39 independent states is only correct for a few years in the 19th century. Summarizing the changes in number of states of the German confederation since 1815:

  1815: 39 (German Confederation founded)
  1817: 40 (Hesse-Homburg admitted)
  1839: 41 (Limburg added)
  1850: 39 (Prussia annexes two Hohenzollern duchies)
  1853: 38 (Anhalt-Köthen merged)
  1863: 37 (Anhalt-Bernburg merged)
  1866: 36 (Confederation collapses; Prussia absorbs Hanover etc.)
  1867: 26 (22 in North Confederation + 4 southern kingdoms)
  1871: German Empire formed, states are no longer independent

> German history is a lot longer than the past century.

Wish they would remember that more, but the prevailing attitude seems to be that Germany started existing in 1945 after some idiot in a previous country in the same place decided it would be a good idea to industrialise mass murder.

Local here: When i was in school (pre 2000), all history lectures from the 8th grade on were basicly only about WW2 and what Hitler did.

People educated here really believe this somehow :-X

It’s true; however it’d probably be a nice parenthetical to add context to the division bring referenced. Kind of how it’s good manners to initially spell out any acronyms at the beginning of a text.

> So while Munich was ruled by a single dynasty for centuries, Hamburg was more independent and focused on trade.

> There are also clear religious differences. Both cities were Catholic until the 16th century, but during the Reformation, Hamburg became Protestant.

Etc.

At this point not getting it seems willful.

In truth, I was a bit surprised to see the piece written in English, because it feels like the audience should be German-speaking. Whilst there is an initial paragraph discussing the different situations within the Holy Roman Empire in the 1100s, the Holy Roman Empire itself is never explained, merely assumed (in fact, it is not even mentioned by name). Perhaps it comes natural to Germans themselves that their history of unity is far smaller than their history of division.

We spent years on this area's history between elementary school and high school, and I'm from rural Kentucky. The eastern Franks. Henry V and the Pope. Barbarossa. Luther and Anabaptism. The Fredericks and Prussian civil order. Romanticism. Moltke and Bismarck. The Christian Democracy movement. Weimar. Before the obvious stuff from more-recent history.

That's an absolutely enormous amount. Your history curriculum must have been heavily influenced by a few educators of German stock or with a big interest in German-American history.

As soon as I saw the title my thoughts went to the old divide between Lutheran High Germany and Catholic Bavaria. But that's a lot because I had a coworker (from Berlin) whose grandfather was from Bavaria and ran away to sea to avoid becoming a priest, which his mother had promised God he would become for sparing his brother in WW1.

I read it as more of an “yeah sure, let’s dispense with the really obvious thing” type aside. Going into too much detail would be distracting.

IMHO abbreviations that you don't define are way easier to miss than context that an audience, maybe larger than originally planned, is going to need.

The irony contained in this sentence is superb.

The author wasn't implying Hamburg/Munich were divided by the East/West border, but highlighting the cultural north/south divide that predates and transcends the Cold War separation.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com